Long Distance Carrier

A long distance carrier uses Lightower’s SONET VPN to enter new markets.

Carrier Challenge Calls for SONET-Based Network

A major long distance carrier was entering new markets in the Northeast and wanted to avoid the cost and hassle of building their own network. They were looking to offer services with a high-degree of reliability and saw that a SONET-based network would allow them to do just that. They needed to be able to rapidly provision bandwidth in order to meet customer demand. At the same time, they didn’t want excess network capacity while they added new customers.

Additionally, since many of these markets were new to them, they needed the ability to quickly and easily shift capacity away from underperforming markets to areas where they had strong demand.

Solution: SONET VPN

At the suggestion of Lightower, this customer chose a SONET VPN network as a cost-effective and scalable way of providing service in these markets.

Combining the reliability and availability associated with dedicated SONET rings and the ease and flexibility of ordering individual circuits, Lightower’s SONET VPN is provisioned over multiple shared SONET rings – offering a fully protected service with SONET reliability.

The service provides an OC-48 or OC-12 virtual SONET ring connecting a predetermined set of locations. Once the service is established, any combination of DS-3s through OC-12s can be added between locations, up to the total capacity of the network.

SONET VPN Benefits

Flexible & Scalable – With SONET VPN, the customer doesn’t need to know the exact service mix upfront. They can add bandwidth where they need it and when they need it

Cost-Effective – With SONET VPN, the carrier gets the same functionality of a dedicated SONET ring, but because it is delivered over a shared infrastructure, they avoid paying for fixed dedicated equipment, fiber, and nodes

Speeds time to market – Rapid circuit turn up ensures that they have the bandwidth available when they need it, guaranteed

Competitive Local Exchange Carrier

A CLEC leverages Lightower’s network to enter new markets.

Challenge

A major CLEC was entering new markets in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic and wanted to avoid the cost and hassle of building their own network. They were looking to offer services with a high-degree of reliability and saw that a SONET-based network would allow them to do just that.

Since many of these markets were new to them, they needed the ability to quickly and easily shift capacity away from underperforming markets to areas where they had strong demand.

Additionally, in order to be competitive in the marketplace, they needed to cost-effectively aggregate traffic from multiple cities and transport to their switch sites.

Solution

At the suggestion of Lightower, this customer chose SONET as a cost-effective and scalable way of providing service in these markets.

Lightower’s SONET Service is offered from DS-3 up to an OC-192 worth of bandwidth. The CLEC can begin with just one DS-3 circuit and scale it when their business needs dictate.

The CLEC orders the local loops out to their end customer location from a service provider. At the central office, Lightower aggregates the DS-1 traffic into a larger circuit and backhauls the traffic to the CLEC’s switch site. Between CLEC switches, Lightower also provides SONET capacity to transport the traffic. This allows for very cost-effective transport of the customer traffic across the CLEC’s entire network.

Benefits

Diversity – Utilizing our unique ROWs, Lightower was able to provide service over a network that was truly diverse from their alternatives

Cost-Effective – The CLEC leverages the Lightower network to serve their clients and avoids costly and lengthy builds

Scalable – This network will quickly scale in order to continue to meet this customer’s bandwidth requirements

Carrier Neutral – Because Lightower has connections to multiple carriers and most major POPs throughout New England, the CLEC can decide which carrier they want to connect to on a location-by-location basis

Wireless Carrier

One of the nation’s largest wireless voice and data carriers leverages Lightower’s Custom Private Optical Network solution as the platform on which they operate their business.

Challenge

One of the nation’s largest wireless voice and data carriers was experiencing rapid growth in New England. As wireless applications continued to boom, the company was in need of a backbone network capable of enabling rapid speed to market. With an established reputation for being at the forefront of bringing new services to market, this carrier needed a solution that would provide a reliable, redundant, and fully diverse network – delivered by a provider capable of meeting and exceeding their stringent go-to-market timelines. The company underwent an exhaustive search and selected Sidera based on its ability to provide a highly diverse, scalable end-toend solution.

Solution: Custom Private Optical Network

Standardized, off-the-shelf service offerings no longer meet the needs of many carriers and businesses, and this wireless carrier was no exception. They were in need of a network designed and built to support their specific networking requirements.

Lightower recommended a Custom Private Optical Network. The team worked directly with the wireless carrier to gain an understanding of its individual networking requirements and developed a custom network architecture, combining Wavelength, SONET, and Ethernet technologies to support their requirements.

In addition to the dedicated account team, Lightower assigned a Project Manager to oversee the construction of this network, working to coordinate the efforts of the various groups involved in the project and ensuring that it stayed on track. Additionally, Lightower secured the elements required to implement the design, including negotiating rights-of-way (ROW), leasing space, and procuring equipment.

Lightower has built into all of the carrier’s Mobile Telephone Switching Offices (MTSOs) in the Northeast, and Lightower now manages more than 800 circuits for this wireless carrier. Because of the scalable solution Lightower implemented, it is capable of providing additional bandwidth to this customer in a matter of days.

Benefits

Speeds time to market – Lightower eliminates unwanted bureaucracy and provides rapid circuit turn up to ensure the carrier has the bandwidth available when and where they need it, guaranteed.

High Availability – For wireless carriers, dropped calls lead to lost customers – so having a reliable network is crucial to this customer’s success. Utilizing unique ROWs, Lightower was able to provide the carrier with a network that is truly diverse. That level of diversity, combined with Lightower’s network protection switching, ensures the carrier will achieve maximum network availability.

Rapid Response – Lightower was able to quickly mobilize resources and build this complex network within the carrier’s aggressive timeframe and to their exact specifications. In addition, the Lightower design allows for additional bandwidth to be provisioned in an extremely short interval.

Scalable – With Lightower, this carrier’s customers won’t receive busy signals. Lightower has designed the network to anticipate and facilitate smooth, linear growth. This ensures that the carrier can rapidly increase capacity as business needs dictate.

Reliable – Lightower provides 24×7 network monitoring and technical support, and proactively keeps the carrier informed on how each of its circuits are performing.

Customer Quote

"We recognize that data center operations rely on the most elite network infrastructure for connectivity to enable and support critical business communications. By connecting our key data centers...Digital Realty is able to provide our customers with a unique and diverse option for critical high-bandwidth applications."

Sidera is now
Lightower.

Lightower Fiber Networks and Sidera Networks have merged to provide you with a more expansive network and a broader portfolio of services.

Our combined network now offers more than 20,000 route miles and provides access to more than 7,500 service locations throughout the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Chicago Metro, with connectivity to critical international landing sites and exchanges.

We are the premier provider of custom, high-capacity network services that ensure optimal application and business performance.